The end of last year brought an important ending for me, releasing me to move into the future with energy and enthusiasm. I am still working in oils but you aren’t seeing much because I have been working on a portrait. Portraits are hard and my teacher is patiently insistent that I do it well. Meanwhile, I am exploring ways to meld the two very different approaches to painting that I use - highly skilled and representational vs creative and abstract.
I found an online class which I hope will teach me how to bring some intentionality to my abstract work - seems like a step in the right direction. There are pre-recorded videos, documents with information and exercises, and a monthly live zoom workshop. The zoom workshops are recorded so yesterday I was able to pull up the oldest one and work along with it. First step was to make up a title based on a recent experience. I jotted down a couple dozen unrelated words but the only one suitable to use as a title was Spring in February. Not that great, but it was just practice, so I went with it.
Next step: list the visual elements associated with title. ? ? ? I was still wondering what to write down when the video moved on to the next step: list the emotions you felt with the experience. Oh boy. If I had the words to describe emotions, I wouldn’t need to paint them.
I switched the video off and set about trying to paint something spring-like or February-like. I am working with acrylic on these, which I am unfamiliar with, so I was soon completely frustrated. Could not get the paint to do what I wanted. I gave up entirely trying to paint Spring in February. Instead, I played around with the paint. Is the paper not right? What if I add some medium? How about mixing in some fluid acrylic to make things flow more easily? If I go over this wet paint with a mixture of . . . This was way more fun than trying to list emotions. Satisfied with what I had learned, I scooped up the last bit of paint from my palette and added it to the painting. As I gathered up my brushes to clean them, I looked down at what I had created.
Uhhhhh
I don’t think I could have done a better job depicting Spring in February if I had been trying to.